NEW YORK - December 27, 2010 - Economist Andy Xie's latest sees the liquidity war getting worse in 2011.

Amerika will continue to pump the financial system with liquidity via tax cuts and quantitative easing. China will keep the yuan cheap and avoid clamping down on inflation.

The tense equilibrium can't last for long, as either sovereign debt or inflation gets too heavy to bear. Whoever lasts longer, wins.

JACKSON, Mississippi - December 27, 2010 - Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's use of the state's pricey jet plane has mixed state business with pleasure and national politics, according to a Politico review of the jet's flight log.

The poorest state in the nation has spent over $500,000 on the governor's air travel since 2007.

NEW YORK - December 27, 2010 - The $700 billion bank bailout, launched in the final months of the Bush regime, was meant to save U.S. financial institutions from a systemic collapse. But an analysis of banks' earnings statements concludes that nearly 100 bailed-out banks are at risk of collapsing all the same.

LONDON, England - December 26, 2010 - America is storing up a second financial crisis by keeping interest rates at record low levels, according to David Einhorn, the hedge fund manager who first publicly warned about the financial catastrophe facing Lehman Brothers.

"The crisis that required zero interest rates has passed," said Einhorn, who co-founded and runs Greenlight Capital, a $6.5 billion fund. By not raising rates "it increases the chance that governments will over-borrow and fall into a debt trap".

BEIJING, China - December 23, 2010 - China has said it is willing to bail out debt-ridden countries in the euro zone using its $2.7 trillion overseas investment fund.

In a fresh humiliation for Europe, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said it was one of the most important areas for China's foreign exchange investments.

The country has already approached struggling European countries with financial aid, including offering to buy Greece's debt in October and promising to buy $4 billion of Portuguese government debt.

WASHINGTON - December 23, 2010 - As the housing market came crashing down in 2008, the giant mortgage company Fannie Mae took an unprecedented step to help tackle the rising tide of foreclosures. It named an exclusive group of law firms that would help rapidly carry out the unsavory task of filing legal paperwork to remove homeowners from their homes.

TRUCKEE, Kalifornia - December 21, 2010 - When Mimi Ash arrived at her mountain chalet here for a weekend ski trip, she discovered that someone had broken into the home and changed the locks.

When she finally got into the house, it was empty. All of her possessions were gone: furniture, her son’s ski medals, winter clothes and family photos. Also missing was a wooden box, its top inscribed with the words “Together Forever,” that contained the ashes of her late husband, Robert.